


Reference Materials

by rosweldrmr



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Library, F/M, Grad Student Jane, Librarians, Libraries, Library Sex, Undergrad roomate Darcy, librarian loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 19:46:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5714926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosweldrmr/pseuds/rosweldrmr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You need to just fuck him already,” Darcy suggests and Jane winces at the thought.</p><p>“What is wrong with you? I hate that guy, why would I sleep with him?” Jane asks, afonted.</p><p>“Because you hate him, duh. Everyone knows hate sex is the bomb. You should just ride him into next week, get him out of your system, and then you can get on with your thesis,” she casually informs Jane as she unwraps a starburst and pops it in her mouth. Meanwhile, Jane is still struggling with the phrase ‘ride him into next week’.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reference Materials

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Artemis_Day](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis_Day/gifts).



> This was written for the 2015 Lokane Exchange. My lovely giftee was [iamartemisday](http://iamartemisday.tumblr.com/), who requested "any sort of AU (particularly vampire/werewolves and Victorian Era) or anything smutty." I am total shit at AU, so I did the best I could. You get smutty Librarian AU! Yay. I really hope you enjoy this fic, and that it lived up to your expectations. Also, thank you to [poetattemptsfiction](http://poetattemptsfiction.tumblr.com/) for organizing and running this round. ^_^

“Rule number one: Don’t fuck with librarians.” – Neil Gaiman ([insp](http://rosweldrmr.tumblr.com/post/137561862817))

\--

“Where have you been?” Darcy asks as soon as Jane is through the door of their shared dorm.

“Ugh,” Jane groans and tosses her keys on her desk, along with her bag and the stack of books she’d lugged from the library. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she warns, already stripping her scarf and jacket off.

“That good, huh?” Darcy teases.

“The worst,” Jane emphasizes as she flops back on her bed. “First there was a fire alarm at 6AM this morning.”

“Ow, that sucks,” Darcy commiserates, even though she’d been at her boyfriend’s off campus apartment last night and missed all the commotion.

“You have no idea! I woke up to alarms blaring and strobe lights going off. It was straight out of my worst nightmares. I’d only just gotten to sleep too, ‘cause I had Astronomy lab.” That Darcy knew, which was why she was safely out of their room. She often disappeared on nights when Jane had to work late. It was just one of the many reasons she didn’t mind rooming with an undergrad. Their arrangement had been working well for about a year now. “I threw on one of Donald’s old shirts…”

“God bless Donald,” Darcy jokes and despite everything, Jane smiles. It’s a kind of litany they’ve developed. Whenever one of them mentions an ex, the other will say ‘God bless so-and-so’. And it’s nice, even in the midst of the absolute shit day she’s had, that Darcy is still able to make her smile.

“The only good thing I got out of that relationship,” Jane admits. She always did have the worst taste in men. “So I get downstairs just as the fire trucks are pulling up, and everyone is standing on the sidewalk in their PJs, waiting. After an _hour_ they finally come back out with, I swear to God, Darcy, the biggest bong I have ever seen.”

“What!?” Darcy gasps.

“Some asshole freshman on the third floor was blazing so hard at 6AM that he set off the fire alarms in the building,” Jane says, propping herself up on her elbows. Darcy looks absolutely scandalized.

“That’s fucking tragic.”

“Tragic for me!” Jane bemoans.

“Oh, that’s right!” Darcy remembers, reaching for the bag of starbursts on her bed. “You had to teach this morning.”

“Trying to teach freshmen physics is like the ninth circle of hell.”

“But wait, that was at like 9 this morning. Where have you been all day?”

Jane twists her mouth into a deep scowl and tries to brace herself for the reaction she knows her admission will beget. “I fell asleep,” she confesses, “in the library.”

“Oh, Jane,” Darcy sighs and tosses her the bag of candy. It’s as close to charity as Darcy gets, sharing her sweets. And Jane appreciates the gesture.

“That’s not even the bad part,” Jane says, bracing herself. She can already feel her face flushing with embarrassment and anger.

“Oh, no,” Darcy whispers.

“Oh, yes,” Jane admits and buries her head in her pillow to muffle her scream.

“Asshole librarian strikes again?” Darcy guesses correctly and Jane wishes, not for the first time, that she could simply disappear. Just crawl up into herself and not exist for a few hours.

“I woke up in the stacks, him standing there, smug as can be, poking me with his foot.” Even the memory of it is too much. Jane pulls her blankets up and crawls into bed, fully clothed. “I was drooling on the books,” she tells Darcy only after she’s safely hidden from view.

“Uh, girl. That is not your finest hour.”

“Tell me about it,” Jane mumbles from her hiding place. “It wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t so… so…” she trails off, mostly because she refuses to finish the thought.

“If he wasn’t so hot?” Darcy finishes for her. She knows all about the dark-haired, fair-skinned, light-eyed reference librarian who’s been making Jane’s life a living hell for the past six months.

He had, in no particular order, caught Jane trying to scale a shelf to reach a book. True, she’d been too short to reach and too stubborn to ask for help, but that didn’t really make it okay that he watched her take a running jump-start to try and get the journal she needed. It was only when she was flat on her back, bruise already forming on her calf, that he finally took pity on her and easily reached what she’d been aiming for. He’d also heavily implied that she might benefit from a hobby the weekend that she rented and returned the entire series of Carl Sagan's _Cosmos: A Personal Voyage_. Then there was the time she’d opened the book she reserved to find an annoyingly passive-aggressive post-it note penned in the most nauseatingly perfect script reminding her not to annotate in library resources, and that the charge to replace the last journal she’d defaced would be deducted from her student account. That was all before she’d been scolded for talking on her phone in the library. Which was bad enough as it was, but the fact that he caught her bitching to Darcy about the ‘hot, jerk librarian’ who’d informed her that the research she’d spent nearly three months on was outdated and _superfluous_ made it somehow worse.

\--

“Excuse me!?” Jane shouted, trying to pull the crinkled pages of Scientific American from his grasp, to no avail.

“Don’t you read your source material?” he argued; that hoity British accent of his was like nails on a chalkboard.

“Of course I do!”

“Then you should already know that OPERA and ICARUS have both revised their CERN assertions concerning the neutrino anomaly!” And for one second, Jane was sure she was being pranked. Dr. Patel was testing her, and he’d put this asshole up to it.

After faltering for a few seconds, her anger flared, making her more cocky than usual when she declared, “And what would a reference librarian know about neutrinos?”

“More than you, apparently,” he replied without missing a beat, and she kind of hated him for it.

“Not according to the _Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics_!” she argued.

“An annual?” he asked, his voice dripping with disgust. He acted like she’d said ‘Wikipedia’.

“What do you even know about ARAA? It’s the most widely influential physics journal in publication.”

“SCImago journal rankings aren’t the only indicator you should be considering. Especially when you’re talking about _fringe science_ like faster than light travel.” Jane rared back, as if struck. She’d said a grand total of maybe 50 words to this guy over the last three months while she was preparing for her first exploratory doctoral thesis meeting with her advisor. All of which was to request research material. She hadn’t spoken to anyone about her subject matter, not even Erik. Yet he seemed to have figured it out, solely based on her requested books and journals.

“Are you a physics minor or something?” she asked, pulling the book she held to her chest a little closer.

“No.” He seemed to take offense to the implication. “You think scientists are the only people capable of reading scientific journals? Typical. You think you’re better than me just because you’ve taken more maths? I have a science degree too.”

With that, he stormed off, slapping down the copy of _Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society_ he’d been trying to foist on her before they got into this yelling match. What made it all so much worse was the fact that he was right. If she’d just picked up any other publication that’d come out since March, she would have seen the revised corrections from CERN on the incorrectly connected GPS-synchronization cable. It caused a deviation of approximately 73 ns, and an oscillator error caused ca. 15 ns in the opposite direction. Which meant that the neutrino velocities were in fact consistent with the speed of light, exactly what ICARUS had postulated.

Grumbling about OPERA and ‘pretty boy librarians,’ she shoved her papers into her bag and made her way to the back of the law library, her prefered spot to work in peace. Since Culver didn’t have a law school, their law library was rarely, if ever, consulted. Which meant that Jane could gripe in peace to Darcy about the latest asshole escapades of the hot librarian.

It’d become a kind of therapy with them, since the first time they had a run-in with the new, overzealous university employee. He’d caught them having a pizza delivered to the library. A pre-exam ritual that Jane had been doing since she’d been an undergrad. A practice that most of the librarians seemed to know about and look the other way for, especially when they shared. Only this new guy didn’t seem to get that memo, and took it upon himself to expel all ‘offenders’ from the library for a week for their victimless crime; during exams week, no less.

Ever since then, Jane had taken it upon herself to relay all his stuck-up antics to Darcy with a perverse kind of glee.

“He told me my research was outdated!” Jane complained and Darcy laughed.

“Well, was it?”

“That’s not the point!” Jane hissed, trusting Darcy to read the subtext that ‘yes he was right’. “I’ve been working on this for months, and he must have worked it out, I don’t know how. It’s not like I ever talk to him. I guess he just saw what I was checking out and, I don’t know, fucking divined my thesis. And he didn’t say anything! He just let me keep checking out book after book, killing myself, trying to get enough references to present this to Erik. All the while, knowing I was basing my entire thesis on flawed findings! Like, he could have given me a heads up. Would that have killed him? I know he gets off on being the ‘hot jerk’ archetype, but he could at least pretend to be human!” Jane found that she’d raised her voice and she was gripping the edge of the table so hard her knuckles blanched. “He called it _fringe science_!” she declared and slapped her hand on the table in frustration. Of all the insults she’d had to put up with for the last four years, that was the one that stung the worst.

“No phones in the library,” a low voice came from behind her and Jane could actually _feel_ the bottom drop out of her stomach.

“I gotta go, Darce,” Jane mumbled before she hung up. Her hands were shaking and she refused to turn around. She was not going to give this creep the benefit of watching her combust into a ball of unmitigated mortification.

“It’s not my job to tell you what to pursue,” he whispered, and he was so close she could feel the hair on the back of her neck move with his words.

\--

Things went downhill from there.

“Yes, okay?” Jane finally admits, pulling the blankets over her head, messing up her hair and sighing. “He’s hot, and smart, and a complete jerk. And the fact that he always seems to be lurking nearby when I’m at my absolute worse is infuriating!”

“You need to just fuck him already,” Darcy suggests and Jane winces at the thought.

“What is wrong with you? I hate that guy, why would I sleep with him?” Jane asks, afonted.

“Because you hate him, duh. Everyone knows hate sex is the bomb. You should just ride him into next week, get him out of your system, and then you can get on with your thesis,” she casually informs Jane as she unwraps a starburst and pops it in her mouth. Meanwhile, Jane is still struggling with the phrase ‘ride him into next week’.

“But… I wouldn’t even know how to go about… how is that good advice? He thinks I’m some stuck-up, pretentious scientist with poor decision making skills.” Immediately she holds up a hand to stall whatever Darcy is going to say regarding his opinion of her. “Eh, not a word. There’s no way he’d sleep with me.”

“Hate~ sex~” Darcy chants in a sing-song voice, like it’s a lyric to a song. “It’s a thing,” she informs Jane coolly, unwrapping another candy.

\--

Jane tosses and turns all night, Darcy’s voice ringing in her ears. And while Jane is the first to admit that yes, it’s been awhile since her last escapade, that doesn’t mean she’s going to succumb to her baser instincts and sleep with the first attractive asshole she comes across. She has standards, damnit. Not the best standards, if her exes are any indication, but standards nonetheless.

So Jane settles for the next safest option: hiding. She casually makes a few inquires about his schedule and carefully plans on her visits to the library when she know he won’t be around. That, of course, doesn’t stop him from still interfering with her research.

When she goes to check out the book she’d placed on reserve earlier that month, she finds it gone. When she asks the other reference librarian about it, she says it’s been flagged for ‘resource usage’. Which was just fancy red-tape for ‘a librarian wanted it and they trump you’.

And even though the mousy girl won’t tell her _who_ reserved it, Jane already knows.

\--

“You!” Jane proclaims the second she spots his tall, graceful stride. She doesn’t even have to check his face to know it’s him. No one else wears suits to the library on a Thursday.

“You,” he parries, a hint of a smirk on his lips. And it occurs to her then; he likes this. He likes _her_. He likes embarrassing her, proving her wrong. He likes the, what, challenge? And with this new information in her arsenal, Jane feels much more confident than she has in weeks when faced with him.

“Where’s my book?” she demands, poking her pointer finger into his chest. She seems to have forgotten, in her newfound bravado, just how _tall_ he is. Her chin barely makes it past his abdomen so she has to strain her neck back to look up at him. It’s not the most powerful pose, but she still feels like she has the upper hand.

“Which book would that be, Ms. Foster?” He practically purrs when he says her name and she hates that it affects her. The way his eyes lock on hers, unwavering, makes her glad he can’t see the way her knees quiver. And it throws her, that he knows her name. Though it probably shouldn’t. Her name is all over the signout and reservation logs. But she is extremely aware of the disadvantage it puts her at. In all their disastrous interactions, it never occurred to her to ask his name. And suddenly she’s livid. How dare he? How dare he mess with her, tease her, take advantage of her reliance on resources to exploit this _thing_ between them? It doesn’t matter how cute he is. He’s standing in the way of her and what she wants, and that’s never been a safe place for anyone.

She wishes she could correct him, tell him that it’s ‘Dr. Foster,’ but she knows better than to lie. So instead, she strikes with the only other ammunition she has. “ _My_ book! The book _I_ reserved. The book you _stole_. _Progress in Geophysics_. You know very well I’ve been waiting for a month so I could read Yan Kun’s abstract on the tendency analytical equations of stable nuclides and the superluminal velocity motion laws of matter in geospace. [1] So unless you want to fight me for it, hand it over!”

Anger makes her more formidable than she is, she knows. A trait her mother passed on. And for a few seconds, she’s satisfied to see his face fall in shock. His mouth agape, she thinks she’s won.

She should have known better.

“It seems we had to pull the publication, due to its superseded theories. We wouldn’t want anyone to waste their time with outdated research materials again. Now would we?”

\--

Jane sees red.

She’s never had the coolest head on her shoulders. She was always twice as likely to leap before she looked. Especially when she was upset or angry. That trait, she was sure, was from her father. It was the same trait that got him killed in a lab explosion. But Jane never stood a chance against that aspect of her personality.

“That’s it!” she declares half a second before she tackles him.

There he is, the size of a tree, cowering between her legs as she lets loose on him. She pulls the collar of his shirt up and bends down so she can yell directly into his face. “Listen here you sanctimonious son-of-a-bitch. I’ve had enough of your shit for a lifetime. All I want to do is get my fucking book and leave. Now, be a good boy and fetch it for me.”

She releases his collar and his head snaps back, hitting the floor. Satisfied with her show of force, she stands, brushes her shirt off, and takes a step back.

But her triumph only lasts the precious few seconds it takes for him to right himself and stand. And then, Jane knows regret.

He grabs her arm with enough force to make her yelp. But her pain doesn’t seem to dissuade him as he all but drags her from the public entrance and back into the dark recesses of the forgotten sections of the library. He hauls her along in his wake past walls of books, around corners and up a flight of stairs she didn’t even know was there.

In no time at all, they are utterly alone. Jane is at least familiar enough with the layout of the Culver library to know that no one will find them here. And suddenly, she is filled with remorse. She wants to apologize, to explain about her father’s temper. But his hand is still wrapped around her forearm like a vice, and the pain makes her defiant.

“You will never touch me again,” he instructs. His voice is silken smooth, not a hint of distress or anger. And Jane is honestly worried that he’s some sort of sociopath. A chill runs up her spine because she knows, in that moment, he can hurt her if he really wants to.

“I’m sorry,” she says, trying to wrench her arms free of his grasp.

“No you’re not,” he spits, “but you will be.”

Jane isn’t sure what she’s expecting to happen next, but whatever it is, it’s not what follows. What follows feels like it’s from a dream, when she thinks back on it. The way his eyes shine with anger, the way he leans in and whispers ‘you will be’. It makes her stomach constrict, a coiled snake ready to strike.

She is not some damsel in distress. She will not allow him to hurt her. She is prepared to fight her way free if need be, but what comes next is punctuated not with fists but with lips.

He bends down and kisses her so fiercely she thinks maybe _this_ is the fight. He holds her still, her back pressed against a forgotten row of books. And in a burst of lust that she feels in her gut, Jane’s only thought in the moments before he presses against her is that Darcy was right.

But then he is on her. Hands tangled in her hair, he whispers obscenities that she doesn’t know how to process. “Fucking bitch,” he seethes. “Think you’re so goddamn smart.” His hands find her breasts through the sweatshirt she wears. “You’re a fucking mess,” he whispers into the shell of her ear before he bites down.

And despite everything, despite how she ended up here, how absolutely insanely angry he makes her, she finds herself arching into his touch. “You’re no better,” she accuses when he drags his lips from hers to suck at the hollow of her neck. “How long have you been waiting to do this?” she asks, bold in her ire, and rocks her pelvis against his. She is satisfied to hear the hiss he makes when she feels his erection against her stomach.

“You have no idea,” he whines, taking her face in both hands and kissing her breathless.

And just like that, Jane realizes she’s about to fuck a stranger in the library. She doesn’t even know his name.

“Wait,” she says frantically when he reaches for the zipper of her jeans. “Wait, wait!” she insists when he doesn’t stop. She grabs his hands and pulls them up between their chests. “I don’t know your name,” she says and there is something like heartbreak in it. She’s not this kind of person. She’s never done this. She’s never wanted to. But right now, her moral compass is only pointing one way.

“Loki,” he breathes and kisses her again.

This time she doesn’t stop him when he reaches for her pants. Instead she whispers a pained, “Loki,” into the crown of his head as he bends to slide her pants down her legs. She steps out of them dutifully and finds herself suddenly weightless as he picks her up with ease. Her legs wrap around his waist without a second thought. Thank God too, he’s so tall the only way she could even reach his lips would be to stand on a stack of books.

She gasps when he presses into her, with nothing but her underwear to dull the sensation of his erection pressing into her.

“Say it again,” he pleads into the heated skin of her neck. Her hair is tangled around his lips as he presses a bite to the sensitive skin there. And it’s just this side of painful. Just enough to make her cry out in pleasure and squeeze her legs tighter around him.

“What?” she asks. In her daze, she doesn’t understand what he wants. The only thing she knows is there are too many clothes between them.

“Say my name,” he clarifies and despite the hypersexualized atmosphere, Jane finds herself laughing.

“Really?” she asks, pulling back just enough to meet his eyes. “‘Say my name’? That’s the best you got?” she teases, and is disappointed when he looks away. Shame clearly written in the lines of his face. Almost instantly, she feels him retreat from her. Not bodily. No, she feels that crowd ever-closer to her, like he’s trying to crawl his way inside her. But she feels him retreat emotionally. Whatever joy or enthusiasm he’d displayed is suddenly gone. And she finds that the lack of it is jarring. She misses it.

And this is what all these months of banter had been leading up to, hadn’t it? She resigns herself to cringe when she says his name, but when she does say it the way he goes still and silent makes her rethink being embarrassed. “Loki,” she says his name again and kisses his brow. “Loki,” she says it again and feels him sigh in relief at the sound. “Fuck me,” she says, pulling his face up to kiss his lips this time.

“Shit,” he mumbles as he leans her against the bookshelf and reaches for his own pants. She can barely make out the sound of the metal teeth of his zipper parting past the roaring in her ears. She has never done anything like this in her life. But now that she is, she wonders what took her so long.

She feels his hand move under her, grazing the underside of her thighs. And then she feels his cock, warm and hard against the skin of her legs. “Oh fuck,” she groans and lets her head fall back against the books.

“That’s the idea,” he quips and Jane smiles. She enjoys their witty repartee, and so it seems fitting that even as they’re about to have sex in the library they would still be evenly matched. He moves his hands to cup her ass and pins her against the shelf behind her. Now firmly in place, she can let her grip with her thighs ease.

She slides down his body just enough to position his cock with her underwear. He grunts, like he’s forgotten she’s wearing them. He pulls them aside and plunges two fingers inside her. She cries out and bucks her hips to meet his hand. “Oh, fuck,” he groans. “So wet,” he says, more to himself than her. She already knows how ready she is. She’s been ready to go since he kissed her.

“Please,” she asks, breathlessly.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he curses and withdraws his fingers, wiping them on the hem of his shirt. And Jane almost loses it. She has never seen anything more attractive in her life than this hot asshole who takes such pride in being the picture of poise and control completely fall apart to the point where he’d wipe the remnants of her on his clothes. She once saw him peel and eat an orange while he sat at the information desk. It took him half an hour and ten napkins before he managed to eat it. But here he is, falling apart at the seams, for her.

He pulls her underwear to the side, two of his long fingers hooked in the fabric, and something about it makes her stop.

“Rip it,” she says suddenly, before he can push inside her. She doesn’t want the fabric of her underwear rubbing her raw while he fucks her.

“What?” he asks, like he can’t make sense of what she’s said.

“Rip it. My underwear. Just tear them off,” she demonstrates by reaching down and tugging at the offending material.

He doesn’t so much agree as he does make an inarticulate grunt and abruptly yank at her underwear. It splits along the seam on her hips and falls limply to the carpeted floor between them.

They stay like that for half a second, both watching it fall. Breathing heavily, and making no move toward each other. But then Jane sighs and that seems to be all the invitation he requires. The next second he’s pushing inside her and she clamps her thighs around his waist, pulling him deeper inside.

There is only a second of adjustment before he pulls back and slams back into her. And then he’s off. Pounding into the soft flesh of her thigh with reckless abandon. He sets his own pace, which is fine for Jane. She can do little more than hold on as it is.

His hands hold her up while he presses into her and pulls back. Over and over, she feels like she’s riding a wave. She can feel it cresting inside her. That spark, that light, that heat that she seeks. She is lost to it, she reaches for it, eyes pulled shut and head rolled back. She wants it. She needs it.

But she can’t quite find it; in the midst of the ocean of him, she feels like she’s drowning. She needs a little help, so she reaches between them, where his pelvis collides with hers. And with quick, short movements, she rubs the small nub of her clit, searching for that release.

And there, oh there. Just there. She can feel it. The wave. It breaks in a bright eruption of sparks that leaves her breathless.

He seems content to wait her out, let her come back from that bright place he can’t follow. But once her vision clears, and she’s coherent enough to focus on him, he leans into her with the full force of his considerable strength. She can feel the desperation in him, the frenzied pace he sets.

And just as before, when he’d wiped his hands on his shirt, she realizes she wants to see him come apart. She wants to see his face when he comes, when he goes rigid and finds that pinpoint of light that feels like it could last forever. She wants to see him. So she runs her hands through his hair, pulling the tangled, matted strands back, and kisses the side of his head.

She wants him to find that same sense of calm that washes over her.

She untangles her legs from around him, only slightly gratified to see the look of disappointment when he slips out of her. But she has no plans to watch the flicker of life fade from his eyes. Instead, she drags him down with her, settling on the floor, her back flat on the carpet, her legs spread wide, hauling him in.

And she can see the exact moment he realizes what she’s doing. There is a strangled sob that he fights against. And she thinks maybe it’s relief or gratitude. She can’t be sure. But then he is settling into her, pulling her legs up to wrap around his chest.

And all at once, the novelty of him is gone. There is just that searing desire that burns her out. Makes ashes of her heart. She feels like she might die with the heat of it and his hurried pace. He pushes into her and rocks back, running his hands along the exposed lines of her body.

He pushes up her sweatshirt and shirt, finding her bound breasts beneath. Unfettered by her bra, he simply pushes it up and paws at her. His hands are huge; her breasts just fill up the palm of his hand. But he is eager in his explorations, and drags the calloused pads of his thumbs across her firm nipples, dragging a shaking breath from her.

She can feel his rhythm begin to falter. The steady metronome of thrusts devolve into a syncopated beat where their bodies meet. Until finally, he muffles a cry into the skin of her shoulder and wraps an arm around her middle, holding them together while he rocks slowly, unhurriedly into her.

They lay like that for a while, wrapped up in each other. And Jane is satisfied to stay, to let the silence creep into the stacks, surrounding them with the soft, warm current of solitude. She’s sad when he finally does stir. But she knows it can’t last forever.

They dress in silence. Jane is minus one pair of underwear but otherwise unscathed.

Finally he holds out a book to her, something she thinks she’s dropped. But it isn’t hers. It’s an old leather bound novel of some sort that she turns in her hands and struggles to identify.

“Chaucer,” he says when she looks to him. “I marked a few passages for you.”

And the blush that spreads up from his neck to his cheeks is just about the most adorable thing she’s ever seen. “What about my book?” she asks, hand on hip and smiles so when he finally looks over at her he knows she’s kidding.

“There’s a cart of references in the law library for you,” he says quietly, turning away. “They’re more current than what you requested.” And something settles in her. A fear, maybe. That this was all just an exercise in letting go. But she sees now, she understands what he’d been doing all along. He’d been trying to help. Trying to push her towards better papers, better journals. And she finds that she’s touched. Genuinely touched at the gesture.

“Thank you,” she chokes, not sure of her voice. “Will you be around, later?” she asks hesitantly. Whatever fragile truce they’ve managed to come to might snap at any second. And she wants, so desperately, to enjoy this a little longer. This quiet, this peace.

“I’ll be around,” he says, that same asshole smile playing on his lips.

And she should be mortified at what she’s just done. She should feel ashamed and guilty. But all she can manage is a weak sense of betrayal for all these months she’d been missing out on this.

**Author's Note:**

> [1] <http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006PrGeo..21...38Y>


End file.
